"The Prodigal Gospel of Rob Bell" (aka JRP's long review)

[JasonPratt]

For example, he spends most of chapter 7 focusing on the parable of the prodigal son (some of the details of which he seems to have gotten, according to his nod in the end-notes, from Timothy Keller’s The Prodigal God.)

That parable doesn’t end with the prodigal son dying alone in hellishly miserable circumstances thanks to his sins.

Instead the son repents, even though he thinks he can’t be forgiven, but trusts his father’s goodness enough to hope to at least be a slave of his father. In fact his father has already forgiven him, and is entirely prepared to lavish extravagance on his son who had been “dead but now he lives” and “lost but now is found”. (The word for lost there even means destroyed!–as it does in the parables of the 100th sheep and the 10th silver coin. In terms of the stories they hadn’t literally been destroyed, but in terms of what the stories analogize…? Rob doesn’t mention this factor, but I thought I would. )

The older son, however, turns out (in a very interesting reading of the parable) to have been in hell at home!–and isn’t inclined to come out of it yet!

WHAT?! THAT’S RIDICULOUS! HE’S WITH THE FATHER THE WHOLE TIME!

Yes, but he doesn’t appreciate it. He resents his father to the point of telling some pretty obvious untruths about his father to try to justify his hatred of his father’s acceptance of the repentant son. “All these years I have been slaving for you!”–but he wasn’t a slave, he had everything of his father’s all the time. (Yet he thought he had to earn his place with his father, and resents his father not acknowledging that he has earned the gifts of his father.)

“Yet you never even gave me a baby-goat to celebrate with my friends!” (There’s one of the two uses of the term ‘baby-goat’ in the New Testament, by the way. The other is in the judgment of the goats!) That’s practically like saying they never even got a chicken. But the father clearly dotes on his children, and he quickly corrects his son about this. After all, the father had already divided up everything as if he had died!–the oldest son had all his share already!

[JasonPratt]

Each son thinks poorly of his father, not only the youngest son. This, although Rob doesn’t mention it, is also the main problem with the lazy servant in the parable of the talents: he explains his actions by representing his king like a bandit-chieftain!–a common form of flattery in the Near Middle East (even today), but very much not an ethical compliment! The youngest son exploits his father, but does at least repent of this even though he cannot imagine being received back as a son. The oldest son exploits his father and doesn’t (yet) repent! Consequently he’s miserable, even while a party is going on behind him that he could join at any time.

BUT THE PARTY IS FOR HIS BROTHER WHOM HE HATES!

Yes, so? Why does he hold onto hate for his brother, when his father clearly doesn’t!? His father even rebukes him on this!

Christians, of all people, shouldn’t be putting themselves in the place of the older brother in the parable! And, though he doesn’t say it in quite that way, this is a big part of Rob’s point. The younger brother didn’t trust his father’s version of the story; but neither does the older brother. In fact, the older brother not only has a story about himself different (and much less good news) than the father’s story about that son, but he utterly refuses to accept the father’s love for the younger brother–not only before the younger brother repents, but even afterward!

The older son, in effect, is also in hell.

This leads to one of my few small gripes with this chapter: Rob’s infamous statements suggesting that people who believe in a hopeless hell don’t throw good parties or create good art.

AND YOU HAVE ONLY A SMALL GRIPE WITH THAT!?!?

Yes, because while he puts it in a way that’s somewhat unfair to his opposition (but not altogether–it’s hard to imagine early American Calvinists throwing good parties or creating good art), what he’s actually trying to do is talk in context of the older son of the parable. He overreaches, in a spirit of unfairness to his opposition, but this time the context ought to be understandable–if anyone is concerned about being fair to Rob, even when Rob is being unfair.

[JasonPratt]

WHY SHOULD WE BOTHER TO BE FAIR TO SOMEONE WHO ISN’T BEING FAIR TO US!?

Because that’s the right thing to do.

This kind of attitude truly puzzles me; I can understand being angry and led into unfairness, especially in return for unfairness. But to try to justify unfairness is self-contradicting twaddle at best, and amounts to saying it’s ethically right or at least permissible to be unethical!

If logic, including ethical logic, means nothing to you (although it should), then at least do so because Jesus insisted we should be fair and generous to our enemies! And warned us, not-incidentally, what would happen if we insisted on being unfair and/or ungenerous to our enemies while relying on our Lord being merciful to us when we are enemies. (Hint: it has to do with us being handed over to the torturers. Or to the tormentors, for those Christians who like to think God isn’t involved in “torturing” sinners against Him.)

BUT GOD ISN’T BEING FAIR TO US WHEN HE IS BEING MERCIFUL!–SO IT’S OKAY TO BE UNFAIR SOMETIMES!!

Especially when it comes time to be unmerciful? So unfairness is good whether being merciful or unmerciful!

RIGHT!–UH…

Again, this insistence on finding some way to justify unfairness, i.e. to justify the fulfillment of injustice as being just, is simply perverse. The only justification for injustice is the hope of bringing the person doing the injustice to do justice someday rather than removing any further opportunity for that person to do justice. And that involves justification of the person, not actually the justification of injustice in itself. Moreover, this leaves no room at all for someone to defend why they themselves are being unjust!

I’m sorry to say that Rob himself tends to fall into this category, too.

[JasonPratt]

My only big complaint about this chapter, is that Rob promotes a common theological habit of talking about God “redefining fairness”. And by this, he doesn’t mean that sinners have an uncharitably unfair idea of fairness, or (more technically) that the standard of fairness is eternally the relationship of fair-togetherness between the persons of the Trinity but as sinners we rebel against fair-togetherness between persons and so we substitute some notion of “justice” which has nothing intrinsically to do with fulfilling fair-togetherness between persons. {inhale!}

No, Rob explicitly means to say, and does say, “the father never set out to be fair in the first place. Grace and generosity aren’t fair; that’s their very essence. The father sees the younger brother’s return as one more occasion to practice unfairness. The younger son doesn’t deserve a party–that’s the point of the party. That’s how things work in the father’s world. Profound unfairness.”

This is something that plenty of Calvinistic and Arminianistic Christians can no doubt get behind and accept–although, being Calvs and Arms, they wouldn’t accept it as far as universalism!

But speaking as an orthodox trinitarian theologian, I have to say that this is nothing other than a repudiation of the existence of the essential Trinity. It may be an accidental repudiation–obviously many Christians hold this position who not only affirm but teach the essential Trinity. (Which seems to include Rob Bell, by the way!) Nevertheless, to say that fairness, i.e. justice, is not related to grace and generosity, or worse are even antithetical to each other, is to say that the persons of the Trinity are not fair (just) to one another but only unfair.

Rob, very unfortunately, goes the full distance on this: the father never set out to be fair in the first place. (Yet the Father is eternally fair to the Son, and vice versa, and each to the Spirit and vice versa, if trinitarian theism is true.) Grace and generosity are by their very essence not fair. (Yet grace and generosity are the very essence of the eternally coherent accomplishment of fair-togetherness between the Persons.)

If the father really saw the younger son’s return as one more occasion to practice unfairness between persons, then the father would fulfill non(un)-fair-togetherness between himself and his son: and reject his son! The son would be hopelessly condemned, the end, period; there would be no reconciliation between them. And the father would be a doer of non(un)-fair-togetherness: which in the Greek of the New Testament, {adikaiosune} would be what we translate “un-righteousness” or “injustice”.

I don’t exactly blame Rob for this: by his own testimony he isn’t a theologian and doesn’t want to be, and even trinitarian Christian theologians (who of all people ought to know better) have commonly fallen into the worldwide and quite pagan notion that justice is only or primarily the successful application of power or authority, to get what one wants or at most to give what one wants to give–and no more than that. To such a mindset, the freely given joy (or {chara}) of God, what we translate as “grace”, must be unjust! And so they clamor for the injustice of God, so long as the injustice benefits them somehow. Let justice be done hopelessly over there on those people instead, if some justice must be done by God at all.

But while I don’t blame Rob for following what almost everyone else does on this topic, even when they aren’t universalists (and not a few universalists go the route of hoping for the final injustice of God), still it grieves me to see the notion being propagated, whether for hope or for hopelessness.

[JasonPratt]

Aside from this, Rob’s final chapter, or chapters rather, are filled with good things. But most of all there is an evangelical outreach to people, whether ‘outside’ the Church or nominally ‘inside’ it, to trust in God, the Father and the Son and the Spirit, for salvation, in this life and in the next. Starting now in this life, not waiting for the next. To trust God in caring so much for us that He will accept us, personally, despite our sins. (Although He will never accept our sins–those have to go! But in his own way, Rob teaches that, too.) To trust God that we do need saving, that none of us are strong to live (or even exist!) without God, much less to be good people without God. To trust that God is great enough and good enough to persistently love all people everywhere. To trust that Jesus came (as God, sent by God) to save us from our sins and from our wretchedness–not to save us from God (either Himself or the Father)! To trust that our beliefs now, matter: what the younger son believed made a difference in how he acted (very poorly!) toward his father and toward his brother; what the older son believed made a difference in how he acted (very poorly!) toward his father and toward his brother.

But what the father believed, and did, made even more difference.

Life has never been about just getting into some group or some place, but about thriving in God’s world, both now and later.

“God is love, and love is a relationship. …] And Jesus invites us into that relationship, the one at the center of the universe.”

“PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS!”

Yes, it’s the same personal relationship that Rob denied was in the Bible, back when he was being intentionally stupid so as not to allow his opponents any credit on a point. Laugh and then move on–but don’t miss the point, which is greater and far more important than anything asinine done by Rob Bell, and which Rob Bell himself goes very far in affirming (beyond his occasional rhetorical cheating.)

[JasonPratt]

Moreover: one of those greater and far more important points, in fact, despite what his own opponents (I have to say “unfairly”) insist, is that refusing this invitation has consequences, now and later, and those consequences can be very harsh, both now and later, and those consequences won’t be ending but will only increase in severity so long as the invitation is refused.

Rob insists on affirming this, too. He refuses to insist on the hopelessness of God in that matter. And he refuses to propagate what he very cleverly and rightly calls the gospel of goats.

AS IN THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS?

That’s my guess–although Rob doesn’t bother to spell it out here for his readers. But those goats did have what Rob calls “only an entrance understanding” of heaven: it’s only or primarily about getting in. They weren’t primarily concerned about living the gospel of Jesus Christ, even at the throne of Christ in judgment, but challenged when they had ever not been serving Him!

Whereas the sheep (or the mature flock, rather, as the Greek term in context with the “baby-goats” would imply) had been living the gospel of Jesus Christ, even when they weren’t expecting Jesus to be their judge and were surprised to learn they had even once ever served Him.

BUT THE SHEEP OR THE FLOCK OR WHATEVER DIDN’T EARN THEIR WAY INTO HEAVEN!

Nope; which is exemplified clearly by the fact that they weren’t expecting their deeds to get them in!

It isn’t about earning heaven, neither now nor later; it’s about living heaven, now and later.

It’s worth pointing out, although Rob doesn’t (quite probably because he isn’t aware), that the first thing those sheep are likely to do, who lived the gospel by visiting the least of Christ’s flock who had been imprisoned and blinded and made thirsty by Christ–(the list refers back to punishments from YHWH upon rebels, especially rebel Israel, for their injustice and uncharity to others)–

is to go visit those baby goats, the least of Christ’s flock, who are being put into prison and darkness where they will thirst for the living water!

WHA–!!? BUT… BUT WE AREN’T SUPPOSED TO HOPE FOR THE GOATS!!!

Well, you can either be a sheep about that, or a goat, I guess. But don’t say you weren’t warned.

The sheep who have been saved by Christ, however, will keep on trying to live the gospel for those goats.

That’s what good Christian evangelists do.

[JasonPratt]

Rob doesn’t exactly get into that, in regard to the sheep. But (despite what some of his opponents insist on insisting!) he clearly understands the evangelical principle:

“Witnessing, evangelizing, sharing your faith–when you realize that God has retold your story,”–and Rob doesn’t mean in some merely subjective way, he means God creating a new reality a new history in us by leading us to righteousness and out of our sins–“you are free to passionately, urgently, compellingly tell the story because you’ve stepped into a whole new life and you’re moved and inspired to share it. When your God is love,” and Rob doesn’t mean in some wishy-washy emotional way, but rather when we realize that the source of all reality is itself a loving personal relationship, “and you have experienced this love in flesh and blood, here and now” namely in the person of Jesus Christ as our only Lord and Savior, “then you are free from guilt and fear and the terrifying, haunting, ominous voice that whispers over your shoulder, ‘You’re not doing enough.’ The voice that insists God is, in the end, a slave driver.”

BUT–BUT WE’VE HEARD FROM PEOPLE WHO ASSURE US THIS IS TRUE THAT ROB BELL ONLY PREACHES A GOD WE CREATE IN OUR MINDS, A “GOD WE SHAPE” WHO THEN “SHAPES US”!!!

Some of his language on this topic is not very competent, I agree; one of my minor gripes is that he does seem to affirm that we ought to shape our God to be like this-and-that, instead of like the other. Which would be pure idolatry, regardless of what the shape of “our God” resulted in.

But anyone who latches onto this is not reading for context. At most, Rob has lapsed into popular post-modernistic language; but in context he means that we ought to shape our idea of God to correspond with God’s real reality, so that God may then (more efficiently) shape us. And that’s no different from what any Calvinistic or Arminianistic Christian theologian would say. Neither Calv nor Arm nor Kath should disagree with the concept that, “A distorted understanding of God, clung to with white knuckles and fierce determination, can leave a person outside the party, mad about a goat that was never gotten, without the thriving life Jesus insists is right here, all around us, all the time.”

[JasonPratt]

The younger son thinks his badness is his problem; and it’s true, his badness has separated him from his father. But not from the love of his father. And in the full gospel (which the parable of the prodigal does not report, focusing instead on illustrating some particular details), the father doesn’t only wait hopefully, his hope perhaps crushed finally, for his son to repent and come home. He goes out after the son to bring him home, and even becomes the way and the road for the son to come home.

The older son thinks his goodness is to his credit!–and this is separating him from his father, too, even though in another way he is present with his father all the time. Starving in a pen of unclean dangerous animals, as a slave “joined” to an unloving master (and that “joining” probably refers to something a Jew, and most other people, would consider the height of disgust!–as well as an ironic punishment for how he spent his part of his father’s fortune, just as ironic as starving now), it’s easy to realize something ought to be done, even if one doesn’t yet trust one’s father to help.

Living among all the father’s things, as the principle heir and administrator, living even with the father himself all the time?–that can lead to more subtle problems which are just as toxic if sin is in our heart. It’s hard to realize something still needs healing and repentance.

Which I would say explains why the father throws out such people in other parables!–so that they will be like the prodigal son!

Our goodness, when we think of it as our goodness, or even when we think of it as God’s goodness but it has no love for our brother (including for our prodigal brother), can and will be sin against the love of our Father. It doesn’t separate us from our Father’s love (despite how Rob somewhat clumsily puts it); that love cannot be earned, and it cannot be taken away.

But it does involve us separating ourselves, as much as we can, wherever we are, from our Father.

[JasonPratt]

Our sins are not irrelevant (though again Rob somewhat clumsily says so), nor our good needs, but neither one affects the ultimate love of our Father, which is the Father’s inherent self-existence: God’s love simply is, because God, Who is love, simply is.

God forgives us, Father and Son (and Spirit, too, although Rob doesn’t talk much about the Spirit), without us even asking for it, before we can be good enough or right enough, before we can believe the right things. “God isn’t waiting for us to get it together, to clean up, shape up, get up–God has already done it.”

“Jesus meets and redeems us in all the ways we have it together and in all the ways we don’t, in all the times we proudly display for the world our goodness, greatness, and rightness, and in all of the ways we fall flat on our faces.”

“Love is what God is,
“love is why Jesus came,
“and love is why he continues to come,
“year after year to person after person.”

“Our invitation, the one that is offered to us with each and every breath, is to trust that we are loved and that a new word has been spoken [by God] about us, a new story [our new creation] is being told [by God, our creator] about us.”

“I tell you that story [of Rob’s own conversion] because I believe that the indestructible love of God is an unfolding, dynamic reality and that every single one of us is endlessly being invited to trust, accept, believe, embrace and experience it.”

“Whatever you’ve been told about the end–
“the end of your life,
“the end of time,
“the end of the world–
“Jesus passionately urges us to live like the end is here,
“now,
“today.”

“May you experience this vast,
“expansive, infinite, indestructible love
“that has been yours [by God’s grace] all along.
“May you discover that this love is as wide
“as the sky and as small as the cracks in
“your heart no one else knows about.

“And may you know,
“deep in your bones,
“that love wins.”

[JasonPratt]

We think of the wandering ultra-sinful “son” as being “prodigal”.

But “prodigal” means “to give away profusely, extravagantly.”

It was the father, after all, who was and is prodigal to his sinful son (and to his sinful sons!)

It is the gospel of Jesus Christ,
today and for all the “todays” to come,
(“for as long as it is called ‘Today’”)
that is truly and persistently and utterly

prodigal

And that prodigal gospel
is what Rob Bell preaches.

Amen.

[JasonPratt]

And so, having griped and complained as much as I care to (aside from some other technical issues) about Rob Bell’s Love Wins:

I will buy any forum member a copy of Love Wins, preferably through Kindle (since that’s cheaper for me, duh ), but a printed copy if you prefer, through Amazon.

Drop me a private mail to set up details on getting it shipped to you.

(I feel pretty safe making this offer, as I doubt many people will read down this far… )

A much briefer summary review will be available later (probably in a different thread), when I get around to collating my notes.

[Gem]

Ha!

I already have a copy.

But that sounds like a great ministry!

[AllanS]

Sounds like a great way of going broke…

[JasonPratt]

That’s why I hid it at the end of my review.

[JasonPratt]

I have now written a far more formal 13-page summary review, which is available for download here.

Pdf and doc files of the longform commentary in this thread can now be found at the top of the first post.